Eugénie Brazier, known as "la mère Brazier" 12 June 1895 – 2 March 1977, she was a French chef who, in 1933, became the first person to attain a total of six Michelin stars, three each at two restaurants: La Mère Brazier on Rue Royale, one of the main streets of Lyon, and a second, also called La Mère Brazier, in the Alpine foothills at Col de la Luère. This was unmatched until Alain Ducasse was awarded six stars with the publication of the 1998 Michelin Guide. She was also the first woman to earn three Michelin stars. Born in La Tranclière in the département of Ain near Lyon, she opened her first restaurant, La Mère Brazier, in 1921, obtaining help from the food critic Curnonsky. Brazier developed Lyonnaise cuisine, a tradition with which Paul Bocuse later found a worldwide success. Her parents owned a farm near Certines. By the time she was five she had learned to make two pies which were specialities of her mother. She attended school only in winter due to her farm duties. When she was 10 her mother died, and she was placed with a family to help working their farm; in addition to her room and board she received a pair of clogs and a new dress each year. She remained working on various farms until she was twenty. She enjoyed cooking from an early age. In 1914, at the age of 19, she became a single mother; some sources mention her father throwing her out at this time. She then entered domestic service in Lyon for a family named Milliat, working first as a maid and nanny and then as a cook. In 1921, when she was 26, she opened her first restaurant, at 12 Rue Royale. She was hired to prepare a cold buffet for participants in Spido, an annual horse race, and the race's director was so pleasantly surprised by her cooking that he asked her to come to Pairs to prepare the event's banquet every year. This established her reputation. She was famously picky about ingredients; her chicken vendor once joked that soon he would be expected to give the birds manicures before she would accept them. She was equally demanding about cleanliness, emptying storage areas daily for cleaning. She avoided waste, creating staff dinners from trimmings and saving anything left on diners' plates to feed the pigs. Her menu changed as required by seasonal availability. When there were few vegetables, she served a macaroni gratin. She expanded her premises on Rue Royale twice and finally opened the second restaurant in 1932, west of Lyon in Le Col de la Luere, in a former hunting camp. The building had no water, gas, or electricity when she purchased it. Michelin awarded the new restaurant two stars that year. In 1933, both restaurants were awarded three Michelin stars, the first time any chef had held six stars. The record was only matched 64 years later in 1997, by chef Alain Ducasse.

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